Voting for Mom

I was in seventh grade when my mom first ran for Family Court Judge and lost by a tiny fraction of votes, half of one percent. I remember sitting in the family room glued to the numbers on the television. The house was packed with friends, family and the campaign team. It was such a close election that the final results weren't in until after midnight. After the crowd left and the platters of food were put away, I found my mom sitting at her desk which was covered with campaign material.

The author with her mother,
on the campaign trail.

"What are you going to do now?" I asked, a little nervous that my mother would cry in front of me. At that time in my life, there was nothing scarier than a parent crying.

She looked so defeated for a moment, but then she suddenly looked up. "I'm going to run again. And next time I'm going to win."

I felt a flood if relief flow through me as I helped my mom gather the palm cards into a neat pile. She did go on to win her next election for Family Court Judge by a landslide of votes. I'll never forget the cheering that night as the results kept coming in from each county.

But the campaign I remember the most vividly was her next campaign for New York State Supreme Court Judge. I was in high school in Manhattan at the time, and woke up each morning to see the campaign team crowded around our kitchen table. My grandmother was my mother's campaign manager, as she had been throughout all the elections, and my grandfather was my mother's strongest advocate at the railroad stations each morning as he proudly shook commuters' hands with his, "I am Judge Lefkowitz's Father" button displayed on his shirt. My grandparents showed up every morning at 5 am, dressed and ready to plan the day's schedule with the rest of the team. I had my own “I am Judge Lefkowitz's Daughter” button that I wore to the Sunday campaign events where my brother and I helped hand out campaign materials. People loved to see the Judge's children, and they would ask me all kinds of questions like:

"What do you want to be when you grow up?" A writer.

"How do you feel about your mother being a Judge?" I love it.

"Where do you go to school?" Ramaz. It's a Jewish day school.

“Just let the Sabbath thing go until you win and then you can rest as much as you want.”

It was such a hectic time that all the campaign events, fundraisers and newspaper interviews were one big blur for me. But I'll never forget overhearing this conversation in our kitchen one morning. One of my mom's top campaign advisors was standing by the counter with a cup of coffee in his hands. "Joan, I am telling you there is no way that you are going to win if you won't campaign on Saturday. That's when all of the important events are. I keep telling your mother to schedule these events, but she won't do it. Just let the Sabbath thing go until you win and then you can rest as much as you want. And I told you: I'll drive."

"I'm not getting in a car on Shabbos," my mom said quietly. "And I'm not changing my mind."

"The discussion is over," my mom said. And it was. She never did drive to a campaign event on Shabbos. She never picked up the phone. We walked to shul Shabbos morning during that campaign as we always had. We sat beside my grandmother with her lace kerchief and blue siddur. For 24 hours there was an official break from the campaign. I appreciated the blessed silence in our home and the peace of the dancing Sabbath flames more than I ever had before.

"I just love Shabbos," my mother would say as we sat around the family room reading each Friday night.

When she won that campaign by another landslide, the advisor smiled sheepishly. "I guess you know what you're doing, Joan."

Years later, when I was already living in Israel, my mother was running for re-election to the Supreme Court. I remember staring at the mountains of Jerusalem as I spoke to her during the election night gathering. In the background I could hear the crowds of people cheering and talking in her home. And suddenly, I wished I could be there. It had been the first time that I was old enough to vote for my mom which I had done by absentee ballot. Homesickness surrounded me without warning in our own silent duplex. I stayed on the phone for a while even though it was the middle of the night, listening to the votes come in until my mom had to hang up.

And then I walked to the doorways of the rooms where our three children slept. I listened to their soft breathing and watched their fluttering eyelids. And I knew, just like I had known that morning outside the kitchen doorway years ago, that my mom had already won.

About the Author

Sara Debbie Gutfreund received her BA in English from the University of Pennsylvania and her MA in Family Therapy from the University of North Texas. She has taught parenting classes and self-development seminars and provided adolescent counseling. She writes extensively for many online publications and in published anthologies of Jewish women's writing. She and her husband spent 14 wonderful years raising their five children in Israel, and now live in Blue Ridge Estates in Waterbury, Connecticut, where Sara Debbie enjoys skiing and running in her free time.

My nephew is having his bar mitzvah and I am thinking of a gift. In the old days, the gift of choice was a fountain pen, then a Walkman, and today an iPod. But I want to get him something special. What do you suggest?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Since this event celebrates the young person becoming obligated in the commandments, the most appropriate gift is, naturally, one that gives a deeper understanding of the Jewish heritage and enables one to better perform the mitzvot! (An iPod, s/he can get anytime.)

With that in mind, my favorite gift idea is a tzedakah (charity) box. Every Jew should have a tzedakah box in his home, so he can drop in change on a regular basis. The money can then be given to support a Jewish school or institution -- in your home town or in Israel (every Jews’ “home town”). There are beautiful tzedakah boxes made of wood and silver, and you can see a selection here.

For boys, a really beautiful gift is a pair of tefillin, the black leather boxes which contain parchments of Torah verses, worn on the bicep and the head. Owning a pair of Tefillin (and wearing them!) is an important part of Jewish identity. But since they are expensive (about $400), not every Bar Mitzvah boy has a pair. To make sure you get kosher Tefillin, see here.

In 1944, the Nazis perpetrated the Children's Action in the Kovno Ghetto. That day and the next, German soldiers conducted house-to-house searches to round up all children under age 12 (and adults over 55) -- and sent them to their deaths at Fort IX. Eventually, the Germans blew up every house with grenades and dynamite, on suspicion that Jews might be in hiding in underground bunkers. They then poured gasoline over much of the former ghetto and incinerated it. Of the 37,000 Jews in Kovno before the Holocaust, less than 10 percent survived. One of the survivors was Rabbi Ephraim Oshri, who later published a stirring collection of rabbinical responsa, detailing his life-and-death decisions during the Holocaust. Also on this date, in 1937, American Jews held a massive anti-Nazi rally in New York City's Madison Square Garden.

In a letter to someone who found it difficult to study Torah, the 20th century sage the Chazon Ish wrote:

"Some people find it hard to be diligent in their Torah studies. But the difficulty persists only for a short while - if the person sincerely resolves to submerge himself in his studies. Very quickly the feelings of difficulty will go away and he will find that there is no worldly pleasure that can compare with the pleasure of studying Torah diligently."

Although actions generally have much greater impact than thoughts, thoughts may have a more serious effect in several areas.

The distance that our hands can reach is quite limited. The ears can hear from a much greater distance, and the reach of the eye is much farther yet. Thought, however, is virtually limitless in its reach. We can think of objects millions of light years away, and so we have a much greater selection of improper thoughts than of improper actions.

Thought also lacks the restraints that can deter actions. One may refrain from an improper act for fear of punishment or because of social disapproval, but the privacy of thought places it beyond these restraints.

Furthermore, thoughts create attitudes and mindsets. An improper action creates a certain amount of damage, but an improper mindset can create a multitude of improper actions. Finally, an improper mindset can numb our conscience and render us less sensitive to the effects of our actions. We therefore do not feel the guilt that would otherwise come from doing an improper act.

We may not be able to avoid the occurrence of improper impulses, but we should promptly reject them and not permit them to dwell in our mind.

Today I shall...

make special effort to avoid harboring improper thoughts.

With stories and insights,
Rabbi Twerski's new book Twerski on Machzor makes Rosh Hashanah prayers more meaningful. Click here to order...